CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2016
| Author | Kadic, Nino |
|---|---|
| Title | Fundamental Consciousness: Panpsychism, Priority Cosmopsychism and Information |
| Summary | In this thesis, I argue that consciousness cannot be explained solely in terms of the facts revealed to us by empirical science. This is explained through a discussion of the explanatory gap between our knowledge of physical facts and those regarding consciousness. Specifically, I argue against the Phenomenal Concept Strategy, a fairly recent approach to answering anti-physicalist arguments. I then claim that if we take consciousness as something that cannot be explained in purely physical terms, we must also say that it is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality. I explain the motivation for accepting this claim by considering what it means for something to be an intrinsic nature and by addressing the problem of strong emergence. The result of these considerations is panpsychism, the theory that consciousness truly is fundamental and ubiquitous. After that, I introduce the combination problem, the issue of how small subjects combine into bigger subjects. Priority cosmopsychism is then offered as a possible way of avoiding the combination problem. I then argue against priority cosmopsychism, claiming instead that we should remain panpsychists. I then move on to suggest a solution to the combination problem based on a discussion of syntactic and semantic information. I argue that information can be used to explain how small subjects bond to form bigger subjects. The final result is an informational form of panpsychism. |
| Supervisor | Goff, Philip Anthony |
| Department | Philosophy MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2016/kadic_nino.pdf |
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